Raspberry Pi Foundation and CoderDojo join forces to teach young people coding skills

The Raspberry Pi Foundation will be merging with the CoderDojo Foundation to give young people the opportunity to learn how to code. CoderDojos will continue to be platform-neutral.

CoderDojo, a Dublin-based global network of coding clubs for kids from seven to 17, is joining forces with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to “give many more young people all over the world new opportunities to learn how to be creative with technology,” Philip Colligan, CEO of the Raspberry Pi Foundation wrote in a blog post announcing the merger.

What does this mean for both parties?

The first CoderDojo took place six ago when founders James Whelton and Bill Liao set up a club at the National Software Centre in Cork. According to Colligan, the idea behind CoderDojo is simple: “provide a safe and social place for young people to acquire programming skills, learning from each other and supported by mentors.”

There are currently over 1,250 CoderDojos in 69 countries, regularly attended by over 35,000 young Ninjas. “This merger will further enable and accelerate our work, ensuring that the CoderDojo community, Mentors and Ninjas have access to the best possible support, including access to the world’s best educational materials and resources,” wrote Giustina Mizzoni, executive director at CoderDojo, in a blog post announcing the news.

With this extra support we will be able to reach and benefit even more young people globally by investing more time in resource development, community supports and growth strategies to make it easier for our volunteers [currently over 9.000] to start and keep running a Dojo in their community.

Raspberry Pi’s Colligan will join the board of the CoderDojo Foundation, while CoderDojo’s co-founders, Bill and James, will become members of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The CoderDojo Foundation will remain headquartered in Dublin.

The organizations’ goal is to quadruple the number of CoderDojos worldwide, to 5.000, by the end of 2020.

What does this mean for you?

Colligan emphasized that “CoderDojos will continue to be platform-neutral, using whatever kit they need to help young people learn.”

Mizzoni emphasized that “CoderDojo is and will always remain 100% content, software and hardware neutral! This is a shared value with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, both Code Club and their recently launched educator magazine Hello World are hardware- and platform-agnostic too!”

“Nothing about the core ethos of CoderDojo is changing,” the executive director of CoderDojos concluded.

Gabriela Motroc is editor of JAXenter.com and JAX Magazine. Before working at Software & Support Media Group, she studied International Communication Management at the Hague University of Applied Sciences.